A trading firm with an office in Sheung Wan, founded by a Spanish entrepreneur who had spent a decade brokering between manufacturers in the Pearl River Delta and distributors in Spain and Mexico, became embroiled in a public dispute with a Chinese supplier that accused it, in a statement circulated on foreign trade portals, of breach of contract and withholding payments. The accusation, made without verifiable evidence, was picked up by an outlet specializing in Asian supply chains and began ranking among the top search results for the company's name.
The risk was critical: the firm was negotiating a framework agreement with a Mexican retail chain that made closing the deal conditional on a "reputational due diligence" review, standard in the industry, and any search result suggesting pending litigation could derail the agreement.
Our team launched a two-track process. On one hand, we worked with the client to gather and organize all the payment records and communications that disproved the accusation, and formally submitted them to the outlet that had published the story, securing a correction. On the other, we rolled out a corporate content strategy in English and Spanish that reinforced the company's compliance track record, and worked on SEO positioning to push the original story out of the top results. At the same time, we advised the client on how to communicate the situation proactively and transparently to the Mexican retail chain before it found out on its own.
The framework agreement was signed as planned, the correction was permanently published alongside the original article, and the dispute with the Chinese supplier was resolved commercially with no further media fallout.
